5 Photography tips

Time to get your nerd hats on, we're going to have a lookey look at some fabulous links and tips which are free and easy for all you budding photographers.

Photoshop CS4? If you've got it, become a fantastic user and learn your stuff. There's so much you can do! But, if you're looking for an easy fix... read on.

1. If you want to learn more and more, check download GIMP 2.6, it's cheap and basically Photoshop without the price tag. You can do everything with it, layer up, dodge and burn, touch up, replicate, it just goes on and on!

2. Layers, I've touched on them above, yes use GIMP 2.6 to add layer masks to your images. What does this do? Well if you take an image with poor lighting, you could for example use a layer with between 20% to 40% opacity it can look fabulous. The brilliant part, it takes moments to do :) Like the image below from here, it's just an image with a layer over the top. You can get copyright free layers from any and everywhere, just google it!

3. Online photo editing sites. These are perfect for a quick fix. You know the editor which pops up on LookBook? Well that's Pixlr, and you can use it here.

4. Cross Process. Wow, this is a editing tequnique that has fast made a comback. Photographers linked on OnceWed often use this processing tool. There are tutorials for you if you're going to use GIMP or CS4, like this one.

Here's a little example of one image I quickly ran through Pixlr's easy Cross Process tool.... it took seconds! From the blandish image at the bottom of the three, to the awesome one at the top.

5. It doesn't matter what you use! As long as you enjoy yourself! Don't worry about pretentious dslr lovers, you don't need to spend £2000 on equipment to have fun. Old SLRs can be found on ebay for pennies, try out film if you'd like to experiment with lenses. If you use a point and click, search for it on Flickr and see what can be done with some easy tips! It's really not hard!

I hope that's useful to you guys, if there's anything specific you'd like to know about, give me a hollar, I'm more than willing to lend a hand.